Computers are used in many applications. As computing systems continue to evolve, the graphical display requirements of the systems become more demanding. This is especially true in applications where detailed graphical displays must be updated quickly. One example of such an application is a computer game where movement and modification of background images may place great demands on the processing power of the computing system.
In order to display some screen images, detailed textures are stored in memory. These textures are then molded and adapted to overlay or map to structures for display. An example is a brick pattern that would be mapped onto a wall structure, where if the wall is extending into the distance, the texture will be mapped in such a way to show perspective.
When the surface to which particular texture is applied changes frequently, the texture must be retrieved from memory repeatedly to allow the display to be updated. These memory retrievals of the texture can consume a great deal of processing bandwidth, and may result in degradation in the speed of the overall program.
Consequently, a need exists for a system that will allow textures and other blocks of image data to be retrieved from memory in a faster, more efficient manner that minimizes the use of processing resources.